What is a Geek?

Geek has evolved over the past 20 years to be both noun and verb, good and bad. The Geek the Library campaign describes it thusly:

Our most revered Wikipedia:

Geek

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This word comes from English dialect geek, geck: fool, freak; from Low German geck, from
Middle Low German. The root geck still survives in Dutch and Afrikaans gek: crazy, as well 
as some German dialects, and in the Alsatian word Gickeleshut: geek's hat, used in carnivals.^[1]

The word appears in the modern sense of a science, math, or technology enthusiast in
Robert Heinlein's 1952 short story "The Year of the Jackpot"

We can quote Richard Clarke:

" . . . (the) difference between nerds and geeks is "geeks get it done.".

Some now think that the term 'nerd' is derogatory, while being a geek just states a description.
 I go with the latter.


Wondering what the state of geekdom was back in 1996? Check out the a bit of web history 
with the Geek Code and compare it to the way we think of geeks today.